Call of Duty Getting Dedicated Business Unit, Action-Adventure Title

After word broke earlier today regarding a shakeup at Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward, Activision has now announced that it's setting up a dedicated business unit to leverage the popular shooter IP.

This new unit "will bring together its various new brand initiatives with focused, dedicated resources around the world. The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit. This will include a focus on high-margin digital online content and further the brand as the leading action entertainment franchise in new geographies, new genres and with new digital business models," Activision explained.

"2010 will be another important year for the Call of Duty franchise," stated Mike Griffith, President and CEO of Activision Publishing. "In addition to continued catalog sales, new downloadable content from Infinity Ward and a new Call of Duty release, we are excited about the opportunity to bring the franchise to new geographies, genres and players." As Griffith alluded to, the company is looking to bring the franchise to Asia, and Activision Publishing announced that the company is in discussions with "a select number of partners" to do so. 

The new Call of Duty business unit will be led by Philip Earl, who currently runs Activision Publishing's Asia Pacific region and previously served in senior executive positions with Procter & Gamble and Nestle. Additionally, the company said Activision Publishing veterans Steve Pearce, chief technology officer and Steve Ackrich, head of production, will lead Infinity Ward on an interim basis following the departures of Jason West and Vince Zampella. 

Even though the studio heads are out, Activision said in an internal memo obtained by G4tv that Infinity Ward remains very important for the franchise and Activision overall. "Infinity Ward remains central to Call of Duty's future and we rely on the combined talent, expertise and leadership of the team there for its success," said Griffith in the memo.

As was already known, Activision reiterated that a new Call of Duty game from Treyarch is due this fall, and Infinity Ward is still in development on the first two downloadable map packs for Modern Warfare 2 for release in 2010, despite some concern from analysts that the DLC would be affected.

Finally, Activision also announced that a new game in the Call of Duty series is expected to be released in 2011 from Sledgehammer Games, the newly formed Activision studio comprised of ex-EA Visceral staff. This new game is supposed to "extend the franchise into the action-adventure genre."